Discussion: Improving a Healthcare Situation
Consider the following scenario: When Alice arrived at Mount Hebron Clinic she was mesmerized by the lobby and the great customer attention. She went to the receptionist to check in for her appointment with the cardiologist. The receptionist quickly led her to the correct floor and preannounced her visit to the doctor with a new tablet-based registering service. Mount Hebron Clinic had gone through some significant changes in the last 3 years. Mount Hebron Clinic had focused on some key areas of improvement: They had computerized the physician order entry systems and focused on compliance with 17 of the 27 National Quality Forum’s Safe Practices.
To be significant and enduring, organizational improvement cannot be achieved with only occasional effort. Real and meaningful improvement requires constant attention and continuous vigilance. There is no single path to improvement—one size does not fit all. There are, however, a variety of proven approaches an organization can adapt to design its own unique plan of action for improvement.
What are quality and safety improvement techniques? How do we apply improvement approaches in healthcare settings? This week, you will evaluate a healthcare situation that requires improvement using the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle. You will also apply other quality improvement techniques to a healthcare situation. Finally, you will Identify key terms and concepts relating to quality and safety improvement techniques.
Discussion: Improving a Healthcare Situation
Healthcare organizations, by their nature, must constantly strive to improve quality of patient care. Many different approaches to improvement have been utilized over the years. The Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA) is a useful tool that has been used by hundreds of healthcare organizations for testing proposed changes. In addition to PDSA, there are other valuable quality improvement techniques that may be used in the healthcare setting (such as Force Field Analysis, Fishbone, SBAR, 5 Whys, etc.).
In this Discussion, you will evaluate a situation and apply an improvement plan using the PDSA cycle. You will also apply other quality improvement techniques to healthcare situations.
To prepare for this Discussion:
• Review this week’s Learning Resources and specifically focus on Chapter 5 of the course text.
• Select or create a specific healthcare situation that needs improvement. Some examples could be:
◦ Patient no-shows for doctor’s appointments
◦ Equipment “parked” and obstructing hospital hallways
◦ Volunteers forgetting to wash their hands before transporting patients to radiology.
By Day 4
Post a comprehensive response that includes the following:
• Describe the healthcare situation that you selected or created.
• Explain the current process in the healthcare situation that you have selected or created.
• Identify the necessary improvements required for the healthcare situation that you have selected or created. Explain why.
• Describe what you will measure to track improvement.
• Define what data should be collected in order to determine if your intervention resulted in an improvement for the healthcare situation.
• Utilize the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA)
◦ Describe one full PDSA cycle of the situation that you have selected or created.
◦ Display the PDSA cycle of your situation in a table format.
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
Support your work with specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and/or additional sources, as appropriate. Your citations must be in APA format.
Required websites:
http://ovidsp.dc2.ovid.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ovid-b/ovidweb.cgi?WebLinkFrameset=1&S=ALCMFPFIOOEBOBEEJPAKFGBFLLCPAA00&returnUrl=ovidweb.cgi%3fMain%2bSearch%2bPage%3d1%26S%3dALCMFPFIOOEBOBEEJPAKFGBFLLCPAA00&fromjumpstart=1&directlink=http%3a%2f%2fovidsp.dc2.ovid.com%2fovftpdfs%2fFPEBJPBFFGEEOO00%2ffs046%2fovft%2flive%2fgv023%2f01938924%2f01938924-201801000-00003.pdf&filename=Effectiveness+of+the+Lean+process+compared+to+other+quality+improvement+initiatives+on+length+of+stay+and+wait+times+in+healthcare+organizations%3a++a+systematic+review+protocol.&link_from=S.sh.22%7c1&pdf_key=FPEBJPBFFGEEOO00&pdf_index=/fs046/ovft/live/gv023/01938924/01938924-201801000-00003&D=ovft
http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/issues/2019/spring/7058-promising-methods-for-improving-quality-through-the-faster-spread-of-best-practices.html
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
Support your work with specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and/or additional sources, as appropriate. Your citations must be in APA format.
